In the 20th century, there were two fashion artists who expanded our perceptions of what the pleat could do. In the early decades, it was Spanish couturier Mariano Fortuny, whose silk creations recalled the ancient styles of Greece and Rome. In the second half of the century, Japanese designer Issey Miyake pushed the concept of flexible pleating into the future.

“Miyake invented a new language both for materials and for fashion aesthetics,” said Abby Chen, head of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum. “He stood apart from convention and showed us what it is to create — and live in — your own world.”

Even in his death (Miyake, who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a child, died of liver cancer on Aug. 5 at age 84 in Tokyo), his clothing and mastery of pleating still look ahead of their time. From his use of outrageous accordion shapes, hard-shell bodices and swooping, draped silhouettes to the understated geometry of his Bao Bao bag, Miyake’s work was often dramatic though never overdone. As anyone who has worn pieces from his Pleats Please collection can attest, the garments move and stretch with the body, not against it. Chris Ospital ofModern Appealing Clothing, a San Francisco boutique she co-owns with her brother Ben that has carried Japanese brands for 41 years, noted that“dance companies loved his clothes for that reason.”

“So much of his clothing was about movement,” she said, “and he always had one foot in the arts.”

Even when combining colors to turn his pleats into dizzying spirals or utilizing techniques like shibori tie-dye, there was a streamlined elegance to his work that fans sought season after season, willingly paying hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for his creations.

“His clothes are intellectual, but there’s also an easiness to them,” said author and fashion collectorChristine Suppes, a Palo Alto client of Miyake. “Not everyone understands the pleating, but they’re quite ingenious. You can wear the clothes to travel, then drip dry and fold back into shape in time to go to dinner.”

Miyake’s reach was international and deeply influential. As the Ospitals point out, Miyake was among the first designers presenting in Paris to consistently feature models of color on his runways, including singer Grace Jones. Prioritizing diversity became part of his brand identity, and is especially notable as the industry still struggles with issues of representation.

Miyake had a particularly devoted following in the Bay Area due to his innovative use of ultramodern, convenient synthetic fabrics and how his collections offered forward-looking simplicity. In addition to his work being featured in exhibitions at the the Asian Art Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as in the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Miyake is known as the designer who gave Apple founder Steve Jobs his signature look. Jobs favored Miyake’s lightweight black turtlenecks during his later years, and the two men developed a friendship. The look became so associated with Jobs that when Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes sought to evoke some of his CEO cachet, she adopted the Miyake garment as her own (although she eventually went with Wolford as her maker of choice).

Suppes said it’s not a stretch to see Jobs’ penchant for Miyake as influential in Apple’s attention to design and simplicity in its products.

“Even with the emphasis on pleats, you could never really pin him down as a designer because he was always responding to what was happening in the present,” said Ben Ospital. “He was absolutely among the first Japanese designers who broke through in American fashion because of that philosophy.”

For Jill D’Alessandro, curator in charge of costume and textile arts at FAMSF, which includes the Legion of Honor and de Young museums,Miyake’s work serve as a bridge between the 20th and 21st centuries in the museums’ fashion collection.

“旧金山的立场在环太平洋long informed its multicultural framework, robust economy and international outlook,” said D’Alessandro. “As a result, the museums’ collections are particularly strong in the works of Japanese avant-garde designers and in particular Issey Miyake, who was a favorite of S.F. style arbiters Dodie Rosekrans and Norah Stone, who both donated pieces generously.”

San Francisco artist Amy Trachtenberg recalls seeing Miyake’s clothes on view at SFMOMA in the early 1980s and felt that his pieces “pushed the limits of what specific textiles can do.” She said Miyake has been influential in her own work with fiber and textiles for this reason.

“I place him in the same context as (Isamu) Noguchi,” Trachtenberg said, comparing him to the famed Japanese American sculptor. “There’s something kindred about the quality of their work — a lack of excess, pure lines, pure forms — that feels very historically Japanese but also totally contemporary.”